It's really aimed at kids, and parents using it with their kids.
The funny thing is, I rarely see this so-called negative feedback from people who have actually used it as intended??? - any of you guys actually used it?, how about letting a younger sibling/relative have a go?, no?, then shush.
Do any of you remember what it's like to be a kid?, if I was 10 and someone showed me that then I'd go nuts, just like I went nuts for SEUCK. My son loved it, and a good few of my friends had a go as well, folk who would never go further with it but had a laugh anyway.
I get sick of 'defending' T3DGM here every time, because nobody seems to understand why it's not for them. All these people saying 'get DB' are people who should get DB and never worry about T3DGM, but really the people using T3DGM don't use the forum, so we don't get to hear their side.
There is no point in swamping someone with technology if they don't even know if game development is for them, T3DGM lets people mess around in an environment that gives instant results, they can go from knowing nothing, to putting together a game in an afternoon. I wonder how many people grab the demo of DBPro and DB, and just give up because it's too daunting.
T3DGM is aimed at a specific market, kids who want to be creative and impress their friends - the uniqueness of the games or how relevant they are compared to commercial games is not what your average 10 year old should be concerned with.
If you want to cut your teeth in game development then it provides an almost perfectly balanced solution. Frankly, if you look at it and think it's too weak, then it probably is, but then as I said it's not for you, so stop looking at it - go look at the next spongebob game because that has equal relevance.
At the end of the day, even if the kid comes away wishing the collision was better, or it had different aliens, or if the levels worked this other way, or the monkeys could bludgeon each other with coconuts - they come away with ideas about what would change given the choice, and that choice comes later in the form of DB and DBPro.
Personally I think the market in easy game development is growing exponentially, especially on formats like the iPhone - if TGC were to make a version of T3DGM for iPhone it would be huge, and it's certainly within their realm. I don't think that FPSC on iPhone would work at all, but the simplistic nature of T3DGM, that nice big start button, dragging legs and wheels onto rubber ducks and stuff. That would be a different playing field altogether. Not everyone is a game programmer, shouldn't mean they can't be game designers for a while though.
